As society advanced, and great poets, historians and philosophers arose, the desire of possessing their works, of course, began to prevail. Accordingly, the scribes were called upon not only to prepare business papers, but to make books. These, for many centuries, were only written by the pen. Until the invention of the art of printing, every page, every letter of a book, must be traced with the quill. The making of a single book was therefore a work of great labor. None but skilful and practised writers could pretend to write books. It was a trade, which demanded careful training. Until the invention of printing it required about four years, of close and severe labor, to make a single Bible! A Bible, five hundred years ago, was worth a house and farm of fifty acres! Now you can buy one, and a far better one, for fifty cents! This change is the effect of an invention of which I am now going to speak. The art of printing, in some form, appears to have existed for ages. Engravings were made on wood, and stamped on brick, at least four thousand years ago, as appears by fragments found among the ruins of Babylon, and Thebes in Egypt. This art of wood engraving, and taking impressions therefrom, was lost for centuries, but was revived, and at the time of the invention of printing, was in common use, for coarse purposes――especially for stamping figures upon playing cards. This art of wood engraving and printing therefrom, was employed sometimes in lieu of writing; the letters were cut on the wood, and in the print these were white, with a black ground. This process is still in use, for the covers of books, labels, &c., and is called _xylographic_ printing. It is said to have been invented by the Japanese, and was in use in China as long ago as the year 1100 B. C., about the time of king David. But still, the idea of making separate types, one for each letter, and printing books from them, had not been started. This was undertaken by John Gutenberg, a native of Mentz, in Germany. He appears to have been occupied with it in the year 1436. He then lived at Strasburg, in France, and here for several years he secretly but industriously pursued his experiments. In 1444, he removed to his native city, and taking one John Faust into partnership with him, he succeeded in printing several works. They soon separated, however: Gutenberg gave up the business, and Faust pursued it. The latter has sometimes been considered the inventor of the art of printing, but it belongs fairly to Gutenberg. In 1555, the “forty-two line Bible” was produced, and was so called because each column consisted of forty-two lines.